China builds high-speed rail in 'Bermuda Triangle of Asia'

14:56
12 February 2018
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Chinese workers are constructing an impressive railroad bridge in an area that has been considered a 'no-go zone' for bridge builders, the Daily Mail reported.

The £1.2 billion Pingtan Strait Railroad Bridge spans across the extremely rough sea off the coast of south-east China, a region that has apparently seen the mysterious disappearances of many jets and boats and is dubbed the 'Bermuda Triangle of Asia'.

Chinese engineers, who started on the project in 2013, are confident that they could complete the colossal traffic link next year. And not only that, they have planned to run high-speed trains above the notoriously choppy waters.

The mammoth Pingtan Strait Railroad Bridge connects Pingtan Island and its nearby islets to the mainland of Fujian Province.

The marvelous engineer feat is a project of superlatives.

According to stats provided by Chinese state media, the two-level structure is a whopping 11 kilometres long (6.8 miles) - 45 times longer than the Tower Bridge in London, or six times longer than the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.

To build the entire bridge, workers will need to use 300,000 tonnes of steel and 2,660,000 cement - enough for building eight Burj Khalifa towers in Dubai, the world's tallest skyscraper.

Set to have an eight-lane highway on the top and a high-speed railway at the bottom, the two-level structure would be the first railroad bridge in China built over the sea and is designed to support bullet trains travelling as fast as 200/kmh (124/mph).

The construction conditions, however, are unprecedentedly challenging.

The Pingtan strait, a part of Taiwan Strait, is infamous for its high winds. For more than 300 days a year, strong gusts blowing as quickly as 13.8 metres per second (30 miles per hour) create towering waves as tall as 10 storeys.

The underwater drilling machines will have to withstand immense pressure up to 87 tonnes created by the ocean currents.

Fan Lilong, the chief engineer of the bridge, told China Central Television Station that Pingtan bridge was the most challenging project he had undertaken in his 20 years of experience.

Mr Fan said: 'Pingtan Strait Railroad Bridge is the most difficult railroad bridge that is being built in the entire world.'

He said drilling pillars into the sea rock was the hardest of all.

'I was trying to think of a solution even when I was dreaming. It seemed impossible - like putting a nail into a stone.'

Apparently, the stretch of water is also extremely dangerous.

Not far from the bridge are Penghu Islands, a Taiwanese archipelago which sparked the Bermuda horror in 2008 after multiple commercial and military aircraft had mysteriously crashed, said an earlier report.

After 85 freight and passenger ships went missing in a small stretch near China in 2016, theories emerged suggesting the waters off southern China, Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines could be a new Bermuda Triangle, according to express.co.uk.

Despite all, the Chinese are determined to tame the tempests.

In order to conquer the impossible maritime conditions, Chinese engineers designed a team of monster bridge-building machines for workers to construct the Pingtan bridge.